Ex-Con Indicted In NYC Student Murder

A bar bouncer with an extensive criminal record was indicted for murder in the brutal slaying last month of a graduate student, and authorities confirmed Thursday that he is also a "person of interest" in other unsolved cases.

"Immette St. Guillen's horrific murder will not go unpunished," said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes in announcing the three-count indictment against Darryl Littlejohn, 41. St. Guillen was raped and strangled and then dumped in a desolate section of Brooklyn Feb. 25.

Littlejohn was indicted on first-degree murder, as well as two second-degree murder counts, to allow the jury that eventually hears his case to convict him of killing the John Jay College honors student even if it finds the murder was not premeditated, the New York Post reports.

Haynes, joined by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, said DNA and forensic evidence tied the bouncer at the New York City bar where St. Guillen was last seen.

Littlejohn's DNA matches blood found on the plastic ties used to bind the 24-year-old's hands behind her back, Kelly said, and Hynes said fibers from Littlejohn's clothing and apartment were also found in connection with the crime scene. The grand jury declined to charge him with rape, since forensic evidence could not definitively pin him to the sexual assault, sources told the newspaper.

Kelly also confirmed that Littlejohn was "a person of interest" in other unsolved cases but declined to elaborate.

His arraignment is scheduled for 2 p.m. today, according to the New York Times. If convicted, Littlejohn would face only life in prison because the state's highest court struck down the death penalty in 2004.

In an exclusive interview with WCBS-TV Reporter Scott Weinberger broadcast Wednesday night, Littlejohn said from jail that police have "the wrong person" and he did not kill St. Guillen, although he did escort her from the bar at closing time, as he would anyone still on the premises at that time of day.

"The focus really shouldn't be on me, it should be on them finding who is really responsible for this young lady's tragic death," Littlejohn told Weinberger.

St. Guillen's body was found Feb. 25 with a sock stuffed in her mouth and her head wrapped with packaging tape.

"There is physical evidence and DNA evidence," said NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, "which links him to the attack."

In addition to linking the blood to Littlejohn, investigators have said that his cell phone was used in the area where the body was found, CBS News correspondent Biacna Solorzano reports.

A manager at the bar has confirmed Littlejohn's story about escorting St. Guillen out of the bar at closing time — but the manager also told police he remembers hearing Littlejohn and St. Guillen arguing as they left.

Littlejohn says he has cooperated with the police from the beginning of the investigation and voluntarily gave authorities a DNA sample.

"There was never a question about me consenting to give my DNA," Littlejohn told Weinberger. "When they first approached me at The Falls, I provided them with my real name, my real address, Social Security number, birth date, so on and so forth."

Littlejohn said while he was in police custody, police made him strip down to the waist as they photographed his body and checked for scratches.

St. Guillen's body was found Feb. 25 with a sock stuffed in her mouth and her head wrapped with packing tape. The 24-year-old student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan was last seen alive early that morning at The Falls in SoHo.

Asked why police consider him a suspect, Littlejohn says it is "because I have a criminal background and I wasn't supposed to be there working."

"She was going on with her life to become, you know, somebody in this world and the family has to be devastated. I'm truly, I'm truly sorry what happened to this young lady, but they (police) have the wrong person," Littlejohn said.

Littlejohn, whose record includes robbery, drug and gun convictions, has been locked up on a parole violation while police built their case. He was accused of violating his parole by working at the bar past his 9 p.m. curfew.

Littlejohn's first brush with the law came at age 17, when he robbed someone with a shotgun. Over the years, he was convicted on drug and gun charges using names like Darryl Banks, John Handsome and Jonathan Blaze — the name of a comic book character.

Littlejohn will be transferred from Rikers to the Brooklyn courthouse Thursday for processing, the New York Daily News reports. When he is arraigned in the afternoon, the victim's mother and siblings, who traveled from Massachusetts to New York yesterday, intend to be there, a family spokesman told the Daily News.

"Having lost such a dearly loved daughter and sister, they felt they owed it to Imette to travel to the arraignment of the individual accused of her murder," said the spokesman, Chris Lang.

"If your child was murdered, how could you not be there?" he added.

St. Guillen's mother, Maureen St. Guillen, spoke briefly Wednesday with reporters outside her home in Boston. She said she wished "my baby was home," then began to cry.